


Resurrect the Sun

by RisingShadows



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Agni Kai (Avatar), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula is complicated, Child Abuse, Protective Azula (Avatar), Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Spirits, The Spirits Decide To Be Useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26225989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: They say the Fire Lords are the kin of dragons, they are not wrong.A Dark Dragon sits on your throne oh great Nation.Prince Zuko is born in the light of the setting sun. He breathes in the light of the moon with eyes fire bright and a piercing howl.There is danger coming. The Avatar is lost. The Great Spirits are done waiting, even if they must claim the young of their nations for their own.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 428
Collections: A:tla





	Resurrect the Sun

It is said that the Fire Lords are not human. 

(Have never been human, will never be human)

But that is heresy. That is a rumor fit to get oneself killed. Sentenced to treason if they can find nothing else to slaughter you for. 

It is old tales and older stories half forgotten in the wake of Sozin’s war and Sozin’s slaughter and the loss of their winged kin. It is a last memory, a last spirit tale, a last reminder that Fire comes from them, from the blood of dragons that flows through the Fire Nations veins. 

It is said that Dark Dragons were rare in the centuries that dragons still flew and fought and burned beside them. 

(It is whispered in hushed voices hidden away that that is exactly what Sozin was, and Azulon after him, and Ozai after him.)

And so,  _ it is a sign _ , they say,  _ the babe was born as the sun set _ . 

_ He screamed in the light of the sun and the moon,  _ they whisper with their heads tucked close and watchful eyes. 

_ Perhaps,  _ they whisper,  _ he will finish the water tribes.  _

_ It is a sign, the boy will be weak,  _ some mutter,  _ he looked to the moon not the sun, he will be lesser. _

_ Perhaps,  _ they pray,  _ he will end this war, he will bring our children, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, home.  _

_ It is a sign,  _ few dare to murmur _ , Agni is angry, Agni has turned away, the boy is a curse.  _

_ Agni has blessed him and Tui has greeted him _ , they say,  _ perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, he will end this war.  _

_ Agni has turned away, Tui has risen in his place,  _ some hiss,  _ he is a curse and a sign and a weapon, he will be our end.  _

…

There are still tales of dragons. They are never mentioned within the city of Caldera, much less the Fire Lords palace. No, not since Sozin began the hunt, not since Azulon claimed the throne. 

That does not mean that the people do not see. The quiet step of a boy with eyes far too gold even for those of the Fire Nation. The shadows a second home to a boy who hisses and snarls and stalks as all great beasts do. 

The Matron is careful, gentle, considerate of the people under her command and those she is charged with. The boy is no threat, not now, perhaps not ever. 

(It is a sign, a blessing or a curse she does not know. 

The boy looks at her with too gold eyes and looks through her and beyond her and hums a soft sad sound as he smiles, slow and sharp and with too many teeth for a boy of his age. 

“You are a swift flame and steady blade, the Caldera needs you. Don’t go Matron Mother, Fire is waiting, Fire is coming.”

It is a sign. A boy of five stands over his little sister with her own too gold eyes. A boy of five watches her and hums a song she cannot hear and tilts his head with eyes closed to greet the sun.)

…

Long ago they were one people, long ago there were Dragons, and Sea Wolves, and Badger Moles and Air Bison. Long ago a dragon begged to walk among man and Agni granted their wish. Long ago, the first bender was born with fire in her veins and battle in her heart and the ferocity of a hunter in all that she did. 

Long ago Fire became and the first Dragon-Child was born and Dragon and Man became intertwined. 

Long ago the people split in four and slowly they forgot. Fire burns, their people are the blood of dragons, their people were always made to burn. 

The water and the earth and the wind forgot, they were not blood of the ones who taught them, the Sea Wolves and the Badger Moles and the Air Bison. They did not understand and so Fire did not care to tell them, to teach them, to show them. 

And so they forgot. And so it was that Agni turned his eyes to his people and Tui and La turned to those who lived of water and Guanyin those of solid stone and the Autumn Lord and the twisting winds still unnamed claimed all those who looked to the wind and sky.

And so one people became four. And so it began. 

…

The Crown Prince is sent to war, his heir following in his shadow and the people know what this will mean. The Dragon of the West has entered the battle field, has turned glinting golden eyes on the fortress of stone that those of Earth defend so desperately. 

(It is a sign)

The walls will fall, they say. The Dragon of the West has never failed,  _ will  _ never fail. The Dragon breaths the very flames they bend, breathes and calls their loyalty to him and binds his people to his very bones and the Dragon of the West is Heir to the Throne and they would follow him anywhere. 

(People forget, Fire is Life and Honor and Love and Loyalty.)

They say The Dragon has slaughtered armies for his men. They say The Dragon is honorable and just and always unfailingly loyal to his Father, to his people, to his son and niece and nephew with their too gold eyes and too sharp teeth. 

His son is not so odd as his cousins. His son has the same too gold eyes but he does not offer the same smiles with too many teeth and does not watch them with eyes that know too much, see too much. 

His son follows in his shadow and people murmur. 

_ (The little Dragon has gone to war, the little Dragon has followed in his father footsteps, the little Dragon is a hatchling no longer) _

The Dragon always wins. Fire always triumphs. The Wall will fall the people know this. 

(It is a sign.)

The Dragon goes to Ba Sing Se with a hatchling in his shadow and too gold eyes and the wall of Ba Sing Se stands and the people within hold their breath and hide their fear. 

They never see the too gold eyes of the boy when he slips from his fathers shadow.

They hear the scream of see the fire storm and wonder at the power, at how many fire benders it must take. 

They do not know. They do not mourn. And when the army draws back and away and the siege is ended, they cheer. 

Agni mourns another of his children alongside a Dragon with deep gold eyes and mourning howl still trapped in his throat. 

(It is a sign. The Prince is dead.)

…

The Matron remembers the Prince with his golden eyes and sharp teeth and sunwarm laugh and gentle hands. The Matron does not cry for that boy, another flame snuffed out for an endless war. 

Neither do the golden eyed children in her care. 

They look to her the night before the message comes with those too bright eyes and the youngest hums that soft song her brother always sings. He tells her it is a song of mourning. He tells her it is a song of fire and life and love and loss. He tells her that they have lost. That they must mourn. 

He looks into her eyes with eyes bright as fire light and tells her they cannot mourn as dragons should,  _ not yet, not yet, not yet _ , and so they sing. Side by side in the empty space of the training grounds beneath the light of the moon they dance. Around them, heat whispers and flame calls and even with Agni so far away, hidden by the sky and the turn of the world beneath them, she feels the heat of twin suns. 

…

It is before the Dragon has come home that a man digs a grave. His hands are not kind, have never been kind. He is smoke and smog and flames that will never know when it is time to stop. 

He does not see the twin suns, does not feel their heat as they dance beside each other. 

One child was born cursed under the light of the Moon he has long made an enemy. One child was blessed, born under the light of the Sun that they claim their power from. One is orange flame and mercy where there should be none, where it should have been forgotten under the weight of the blood that soaks their family. One is blue flame and cold calculating logic, who looks to him and sees him and knows the paths she must take for what is hers. 

(They say that Sozin was a Dark Dragon, that Azulon followed in his footsteps, they fear that Iroh will as well. 

If only they had know, Iroh was never the Dark Dragon, Ozai had spent all of his life taking what he wanted, what was one more life for the power he craved?)

Those of the Dark never expect their own to turn against them. In the morning, the elder was dead. In the morning too children with golden eyes and sharp teeth stood as high as they could climb and dreamed of wings they had never had and wondered what it would be to fly. 

…

Fire Lord Ozai is crowned before The Dragon has made his flight home. The ashes of his father still smolder, the space at his side where his lady should stand is empty. 

There are too children with too gold eyes that stand just far enough that his shadow does not reach them. 

…

Lady Ursa is gone. But there is a mask in the Prince’s room, and a pair of dao blades hidden away. 

A Mother knows her children. 

There is a mask of a deep blue with a vicious grinning smile that fits Zuko perfectly. There is a pair of dao blades that settle in his palms as if they have always sat there. Blue ribbon twined around the hilt and trailing after each step he takes. 

They are never seen again. 

…

Her daughter is not forgotten. 

In her room, she finds a ribbon of a deep blue. (A match to a mask her brother wears when it suits him.) In her room there is a blade, no larger than a knife. 

A Mother knows her children. 

…

Even when they are not children at all. Even when they have the glinting gold eyes of the dragons. Even when Agni murmurs in their ears. Even when they were born to burn. 

...

It is months before the Dragon comes home. He comes and he bows before a brother who has claimed his throne and his power and he stays his hand and quiets the rage in his blood and sighs with the grief that clings to every flame he has seen since he howled alongside Agni for the loss of his child. 

His brother smiles that same vicious smile he always had for the old fools of the court he knew would fail and die and disappear. The Dragon wonders when his brother became someone, something, he does not know. 

Around him the flames howl with the loss of their people and The Dragon looks to his brother and speaks. 

“Who better to train the Crown Prince than the Crown Prince before him?”

The Dragons brother smiles with his golden eyes and bowed his head with a mocking laugh. 

“Who better to train the Crown Prince than the Failure before him?”

The Dragon looks for the brother he knew, the brother he loved and sees only the dark scales of the lost before him. 

_ (They say the Fire Lords are the kin of dragons, they are not wrong.  _

_ A Dark Dragon sits on your throne oh great Nation. _

_ When will you find your voice? When will you scream? When will you sing?) _

…

There is a room where the lives of his people are decided. A room where the Generals speak their plans and calculate their losses and wonder if their success will make up for such a sacrifice in Agni’s eyes. 

Zuko  _ wants _ , with everything that he is to be seated in that room. To speak for the lives of his people. To snarl and hiss and snap with every life tossed aside so carelessly as Agni sings mourning songs in his ears. 

(The Guards see the boy and his too gold eyes and wonder what Agni has given them. Gift or curse, the Prince they see is more than the body of the boy. The Prince they see trails smoke like wings as he watches them, claws tucked close where he perches listening for the next life they will toss from careless hands. 

The Guards see the boy and wonder, will those too sharp teeth and fire bright eyes and the haunting melody that trails the boy like his shadow be theirs? Or will it slip away, stolen by Earth or Wind or Water.)

...

The second child, the daughter who stands beside her brother (never in his shadow, only ever equal in all but years), she does not watch the door. She has other tasks and other whispers murmuring in her ears. 

_ Soon the time will come. Soon,  _ Agni whispers in her ears, _ soon, soon, soon. _

…

Fire is life. 

That was the first lesson Zuko learned in life. He did not learn it from his mother, nor his father, nor any of the servants who watched him and fed him and bathed him. 

The closest who came to teaching anything at all was the Matron. 

(She was important. Soon Zuko would not be there to protect her. Soon Azula would see to it.)

Zuko does not seek to learn when he is finally allowed to sit at the table. To listen as they speak and call and  _ sacrifice _ . Zuko does not seek to learn from these men who have long forgotten what it is to fight on the front lines and instead play court games with the lives they command as Agni howls his grief across the sky. 

They are all Agni’s children. They would sacrifice Agni’s own blood for a victory that will bring them nothing. 

(They call it morale.

Why would the massacre of a battalion bring morale?

They laugh when he asks this. 

What would a boy prince know of war.)

They are abandoning Agni’s children to die, to bleed out on soil far from their homes. They are abandoning them to be crushed beneath the wrath of Guanyin's people and Zuko will not stand by. They seek death for the sake of death. The murder of their nations children for the sake of a sacrifice unneeded. 

The dragons are dead. At his Great-Grandfather's hand and his Grandfather and his Uncle after that, the dragons are dead. Agni is still singing, still mourning in his ears and the boy with the dragon eyes stands. 

_ There is no honor here. There is no loyalty here. You who would betray your people. You who would lead them to slaughter.  _

They say there was a dragon there. They say there was a hatchling with sharp claws and sharp teeth and vicious flames. 

They whisper Agni Kai. 

_ (They say, it is a sign. There have been many signs. If only they would read them.) _

…

It is a ceremony. A ceremony with Agni as their witness. A ceremony in which they will fight as Agni’s first children did, in the way they inherited from their winged kin. And so they must follow this ceremony. 

_ (Honor, Loyalty, Life, and the Sun high above them. _

_ An Agni Kai is a ceremony after all.) _

They do not look at each other before it begins. They bow, prostrate, to honor Agni as all who hold fire in them must. 

In the stands the golden eyes of the second child watched. Above them, a cloud passed in front of the sun. In the stands, the second child tilted her head. Listening to something no one else could. Beside her, the Matron laid a hand on her shoulder. 

They turn. 

_ (He is weak.)  _

Zuko does not fight. 

_ (It is a sign.) _

Ozai advances. 

His  _ father  _ advances. 

_ (Oh how the songs will whisper, oh how the people will scream.) _

There is a hand, flame cupped in a palm, steady and unwavering and beautiful as it always is when life whispers and sputters and dances. A body blotting out what light there was with the sun still hidden by clouds. 

_ (Did you know, there is a Dark Dragon on your throne oh great Nation) _

_ “You will learn respect.” _

He is a boy with too gold eyes and too sharp teeth and he does not beg. Agni has never left him, will never leave him. If he must burn for his people. He will look his father in the eyes, and he will  _ burn _ .

_ “And suffering will be your teacher.” _

For every day their people suffer, Zuko suffers beside them. As is the nature of Fire. 

_ (Did you know, there is a Dark Dragon within your homes oh great Nation) _

And in the silence of the stadium, a father cups his sons cheek. 

And the wind screams. 

_ (They say the Prince is burned.) _

_ (They say Agni is angry. They say the Prince is burned and the flames of the Agni Kai went out.) _

The Prince is banished. The Prince is gone. 

_ (There is a Dark Dragon on your throne oh great Nation.) _

_ (They do not say that the flames of the throne room went out. The doors are guarded. The halls are watched.) _

…

He wakes up. His skin burns. Tears slip down his cheeks and he chokes on air and Agni is still a never ending song in his ears. The flames around him flare and twist with life and they are beautiful and he wonders if he will scar and there is a hand on his shoulder and Uncle standing over him with wonder in his eyes. 

The flames he calls twist and dance over him, a swirling beautiful dance of greens and reds and oranges and purples that dance across his skin and soothe the ache that had held him down to his bones. 

One day, he will teach Uncle that. It might be useful. 

Uncle speaks and he listens. He has been banished, the Fire Lord has given him a task before he may return home. His sister wishes him well and Uncle has never truly understood her but he hastens to add that she has left a letter, well, a handful of letters. When Zuko is ready, he may read them. 

Zuko is always ready, but he will wait. Uncle is worried and that is not something he will allow when he will be able to see nothing but the broken shadow of a lost child in the space where Zuko sits. Zuko will deal with that first. That and the crew he knows they will need. 

(Azula sees to it in the end. She appears with a crew at her back and smiles with too many teeth as their Uncle watches and Zuko matches her as the crew she found them filters past. All wide eyes and uncertainty. 

They are perfect.)

Now, all Zuko must do is find the Avatar and claim them for the Fire Nation. At least, by his fathers rules. 

Zuko could laugh, for all the years his father has watched them he has never noticed. 

He has never cared for rules. 

…

Their crew is a mix of raw-recruits and veterans and all are handpicked by his sister. They are perfect. Or they will be. With time and an adjustment period and the knowledge that Zuko will not toss them aside as so many would. The knowledge that Zuko will not allow his people to come to harm if he can stop it. 

They are loyal, will always be loyal even if they haven’t quite realized it themselves yet. He wraps them in his flame, guards them against any call that may steal them with the jealousy of a dragon. 

They are his. He will not stand to lose them, even a single one. He will tear the world apart if it takes them. He will burn it all to the ground for his people. 

There is a reason he is the one sent to wander the seas while his sister prowls their home. 

There is a reason for everything. Agni does not tell them all, but he tells them enough. 

…

His nephew is a child and not, all at once. His nephew is something more and other and unknown all at once. But he is his and he will not abandon him. No matter how his heart skips when that second sun slips closer to him and he turns to meet the golden eyes of his nephew. 

Zuko appears beside the Lieutenant when they have been at sea for two weeks. Looking up at the man with considering eyes before he nods turning away to watch the waves slip by. The wind whispers and Zuko’s head tilts as if to listen and Iroh can’t help but wonder if he can hear it. If he can hear what the wind calls when none of its children live to listen to it. 

“Set course to the Air temples.” The Lieutenant valiantly doesn’t startle beyond the widening of his eyes when he turns to look at the Prince. For today, Iroh notes, there is no scar on his cheek. No scar maring the child’s face before him.

He knows that that will not always be the case. Has seen the change. The days when a scar settles red and angry over his eye, and the days when there is no scar but flames wisp across his cheek as if they belong there. Beautiful and horrifying and yet another mark of this boy that is not a boy that looks at him with a knowledge he can not understand. 

(He carefully ignores the days when there is no scar but scales stretch across the expanse of his cheek and up over one slitted eye. He would rather the clear skin of the boy he remembers before he watched his father cup flames against his cheek.)

The Prince is quiet, a wraith in the shadows even with his fire bright eyes and rough humming song that never ends. The Prince stalks the ship like the little dragon hatchlings the stories speak of and the crew carefully keep there voices down when the Dragon of The West is too close and too knowing and looking at them as if he could hear every word they’ve ever said if he met their eyes. 

They know what the Dragon of the West did to the dragons. 

His voice is hoarse today. Like crackling flames, rough and smoke worn and perhaps burned, though Iroh doesn’t know how that would’ve occurred. He ghosts across the room with a steady step, one hand brushing against the wall beside him as he looks down at the map. Laying one finger against the map, the Western Air Temple beneath it. 

“We have one chance. What do you say Lieutenant Jee?” His voice shifts like the candle flames around them. His step is just as silent as it always has been when Jee nods and he is gone again, slipping away as the Lieutenant straightens to blink after him. Even half blind as Iroh thinks he may be, his nephew has not lost the silent step he perfected while stalking his way through the Palace walls. 

…

Lieutenant Jee is the highest ranking Naval officer on the ship. A ship with a crew of misfits pieced together like a puzzle, Marines and Army soldiers tossed together as if at random. Jee knows it is anything but. Jee has been sworn to secrecy after so many days beside a girl with a trailing blue ribbon in her hair and dragon eyes. 

She had given him a list. He had chosen from the list and she had done what was needed to acquire what he requested. The only request she had not granted was the chance to meet with the Prince he would be following. 

He saw why the day they slipped away from shore. The Prince had waited until they were too far away to return, until the chance to leave was gone before he slipped to the deck and stood. Face turned to the sun as those on deck held their breath and watched. 

On that day, there had been a scar. A red pitted thing that had stolen the breath from Jee’s chest as the boy, too young and too thin and too frail for a scar like that, had turned to met his eyes with his own and bowed low and swift and far more than any simple Lieutenant should’ve received. Ranking officer on board or not. 

When he blinks the boy is gone. The two assigned to the rigging the only figures still visible on the deck. Both too young for a mission that may well be a suicide mission. 

…

The day they arrive at the Western Air Temple Zuko clambers up into the rigging. Slipping higher and higher until he stops. Face turned towards the sun before he turns away, instead listening to the whispering wind. 

He remembers them though he has never met them. The time for that is soon, they have been alone without the children they harbored and taught for so long. Agni has mourned beside them just as he has mourned his own children and so Zuko knows that he has a task here. And a lesson. 

The day they arrive at the Western Air Temple Zuko clutches a blade in his hand. Reaches up, up, up and grasps his phoenix tail one hand. 

It is a sign of royalty. 

_ It is a sign of honor.  _

_ (It is a sign.) _

Zuko cuts. Leaves himself with nothing but the short shorn hair he had left after the Fire Lord cupped his face in a burning hand. In his ears, Agni hums and murmurs his approval. In the distance, he reaches for the brush of a second sun and waits for the pulse he receives at his touch. 

In the Fire Nation City of Caldera, the newly named Heir to the Throne lifts her face to the sun, turning to face the light of a second sun distant but there, there,  _ there _ . And smiles under the watch of the Matron. 

…

On the wooden ship high in the rigging, Jee could sense a second sun. 

_ (It is a sign, a blessing, a divine right.) _

On a ship carrying the banished Prince of a Nation at war, there is a second sun. 

_ (There is a Dark Dragon on your throne oh great Nation.) _

Zuko steps from the deck of the ship with a rolling step, as if dancing to a song they cannot hear as his people trail in his footsteps.

_ (When will you sing? When will you scream oh great Nation?) _

And the flames of the Fire Throne go out. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and kudos please! Let me know what you think!  
> Come chat with me on [Tumblr](https://adreamfromnevermore.tumblr.com/) if you want to know more!  
> Okay this is kind of an amalgamation of head canons I've picked up from other fics and the sudden idea of Zuko and Azula being new born spirits Agni forms almost as younger siblings because it's been 100 years and someone has to fix something around here. 
> 
> Depending on how many people want to see it, I have plans for this to be a series involving the rest of the Gaang as well. (as newborn spirits that is, they can be dangerous and kinda feral like that too Zuko)
> 
> AS it is, Guanyin and the Autumn Lord are both from Embers by Vathara ( I actually thought that was canon until I was done and thought to look it up, I'm an idiot I know), I also took inspiration from Vathara's portayel of the way the elements work with the people (ie. fire being bound by loyalty, earth by their deals, water by family) I can't remember anything else so if I do I'll add it to here.


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